Blanks Fired at Synagogue Near Paris

Blanks fired towards a synagogue in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil, hours after police kill a suspect in a previous anti-Semitic attack.

By Elad Benari

First Publish: 10/7/2012, 4:45 AM

Gun (illustration)

Flash 90

Blanks were fired on Saturday night towards a synagogue in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil, police sources and a Jewish community leader told the Le Parisien newspaper.

The newspaper reported that the shots were fired from a car which slowed down to approach the synagogue. The blanks were then fired and the car accelerated and fled.

The president of the Val d'Oise Jewish community, Moshe Cohen-Sabban, confirmed to the newspaper that shots had been fired at the Argenteuil synagogue and said, “It is an another act against the Jewish community. This is very worrying.”

Le Parisien noted that French President François Hollande is scheduled to meet on Sunday with representatives of the Jewish community in France.

The latest incident came several hours after a man who was linked to an attack on a Jewish store last month was shot dead by French police.

Following the attack on the Jewish supermarket, MK Danny Danon sent a letter to Hollande and asked him to beef up security at Jewish learning institutions.

Several months ago Mohamed Merah, a French citizen who claimed to have attended Al-Qaeda-style training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, killed three Jewish schoolchildren and a rabbi in a shooting attack at the Otzar Hatorah school in Toulouse.

Merah’s attack prompted France to present plans for a new anti-terrorism law that will allow authorities to prosecute citizens who attend militant Islamist training camps abroad.